Book one of the Oskeld saga · Out 14 November
Read chapter one
Meet the six houses
02 · The houses of the wall
How to read a banner
Chapter I · The Gatekeepers
House Varrow
“We keep the gate.”
Varrow Hold, the Eastern Gate
Sable, a pale glacier, a key or
Chapter II · The Foresters
House Esker
“Rooted in the rime.”
Eskerwood, below the wall
Vert, a chief argent, a pine tree argent
Chapter III · The Fire-Tenders
House Brannoch
“Kindle, then hold.”
Brannoch Forge, the Red Stair
Per chevron gules and sable, a flame or
Chapter IV · The Lake Wardens
House Coldmere
“Still water, deep ice.”
Coldmere, on the frozen lake
Per fess azure and argent, three waves argent
Chapter V · The Bell-Ringers
House Tarrant
“Ring once for dawn.”
The Belltower on the High Walk
Purpure, a bordure or, a bell or
Chapter VI · The Smiths
House Ashgrove
“What is struck stays true.”
Ashgrove, the Iron Quarry
Per bend argent and sable, an anvil gules
03 · Release day
Book one lands on 14 November.
Hardback, ebook and a full-cast audio edition, everywhere books are sold. Order before release day and your copy ships with a signed bookplate.
Hardback
624 pages, map endpapers, signed bookplate for early orders
Ebook
Out at midnight in your time zone, with the house appendix
Audio
22 hours, eleven narrators, one for every point of view
Collector’s
Numbered run with sprayed edges and six banner art cards
04 · Read the first page
It starts with a gate that should not open.
Chapter one · The long watch · 18 min read
The gate had not opened in forty years, and the Warden had been told, as a boy, that it never would.
So when the chains began to move at midnight, the sentries on the parapet did what sentries do. They looked at each other, and then at the Warden, and then at the dark on the far side of the ice.
Seven hundred feet below them, snow was pouring through a gap that had not existed an hour before.
“Who gave the order?” the Warden asked. Nobody answered. Nobody had.
Far to the west, a beacon went up in a column of orange light. Then the next one. Then the next, marching along the top of the wall toward them faster than any rider could carry the news.
The Warden took the key from the chain around her neck and, for the first time in her life, found that she did not know which way to turn it.
Keep reading chapter one
05 · The world
Three hundred miles of ice. Six watch posts.
N ↑ The white
long, coast to coast
at its highest point
winters of ice, layer by layer
houses on the watch
06 · Chapters
Eight chapters, six points of view.
All chapters
01
House Varrow
The long watch
A gate that has not opened in forty years opens at midnight, and the Warden has one hour to decide who walks through.
02
House Brannoch
Fire on the parapet
For nine hundred years the beacons were a formality. Tonight the fire comes from above.
03
House Coldmere
What the lake remembers
The ice records every winter. A warden reads it and finds a winter that should not exist.
04
House Tarrant
Moonwing
The bells ring a signal no one alive has heard. It means: something is crossing the moon.
07 · What is flying south
Three dragons. Nobody on the wall has seen one before.
The Raker
Four wings, belly lit like a forge. It flies the length of the parapet and burns the beacons first.
wingspan
in a dive
Moonwing
Only ever seen against the moon. The bell-ringers have a signal for it that no one alive had used.
wingspan
sightings on record
The Low Flyer
Passes so close to the snowfield that the drifts melt in a line behind it.
wingspan
above the snow
08 · From early readers
Advance copies went out in August
09 · Behind the wall
Written over six winters by M. R. Ostrand.
Ostrand grew up on a coast where the sea froze most years, and started drawing the wall on the back of a tide table. The Oskeld saga is planned as three books; the second is being written now, in a shed with a wood stove and no internet.
Upcoming events
Launch night reading
Edinburgh
Launch
Signing and Q&A
Manchester
Signing
Worldbuilding workshop
Online
Workshop
Winter fantasy festival
Bristol
Festival
10 · Dispatches
News from the wall.
All dispatches
Behind the book
The cover, and why the wall is blue
How the cover for book one went through eleven versions before the ice looked cold enough.
Worldbuilding
Six houses in one table
The spreadsheet behind the houses: what each one owns, owes and wants.
Release
Signed copies: how early orders work
Every order placed before release day ships with a signed bookplate. Here is how to get one.
11 · Choose your edition
Hold the wall in your hands.
Three editions, one release day. Every early order ships signed, and the collector’s run is numbered and will not be reprinted.
- Sprayed edges in ember and ice
- Six house banners as art cards
- Slipcase with the wall in foil
- Everything in Standard